Abiotic Cycles in the Biosphere

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Abiotic Cycles in the Biosphere

In the last 30 years, society has rediscovered the value of recycling – of using materials such as metal, paper, and plastic over and over again. But the recycling accomplished by society is dwarfed by the recycling performed by nature. Vast and unending cycles move different types of matter between organisms and their environments. This review will consider how some of these vital substances circulate through the Earth’s living and nonliving systems.

Biotic and Abiotic Factors

Biologists (scientists studying living organisms) often put everything in the world into one or two categories: biotic or abiotic. Biotic factors are things that are or used to be alive. A Streptococcus bacterium, a slime mold, a human being, and a redwood tree are all biotic factors. A rotting tree stump or decaying squirrels are also bioticfactors because they were once parts of living organisms. Biotic factors also include relationships amongorganisms.

An abiotic factor is something that is not and never has been alive. A rock in the forest, the water in a stream, and a weather system are all abiotic factors. Many abiotic materials have been on Earth for billions of years. Some of the water molecules in your body may once have been in the body of a Tyrannosaurus rex. Some of the oxygen molecules you breathe were used millions of years ago by a trilobite. Abiotic factors are not alive, but they are crucial to the existence and continuation of life on Earth. Without the abiotic factor known as sunlight nearly all of life on the Earth could not exist. The recycling of water, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorous is known as biogeochemical cycles.

What would happen to life on the Earth of the processes, that recycle abiotic materials were to stop?

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Stages of the Hydrological Cycle

The hydrologic cycle is the cycling of water among the atmosphere, the land, and the seas. The hydrologic cycle has six main components: 1) precipitation, 2) infiltration, 3) runoff, 4) evaporation, 5) transpiration, and 6) condensation. Refer to the diagram below as each process in considered. Based on what you already know can you fill in the correct processes?

15. What does the graph show about the earth’s atmosphere? As the concentration of carbon dioxide increases, the temperature also increases.

16. Most scientists are concerned that global warming is the result of an increase inthe concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

17. Which environmental factors are looked at when monitoring human pollution? Air quality, water quality, ocean currents

18. The maintenance of a self-sustaining ecosystem requires what? Cycling of materials between organisms and their environment

1. In the material cycle above, which processes are represented by letters A and B? A – cellular respiration, B - photosynthesis